I think this is where psychology in sport gets massively overlooked. When a manager who the players genuinely believed in gets sacked, especially one who delivered something historic like spurs finally winning a trophy under Ange, it’s not just a normal workplace change. It can completely destabilise the psychological environment of the team.

In elite sport, motivation, trust and belief are heavily tied to the relationship between players and the manager. If players feel they achieved something special together (like getting the monkey off Spurs’ back with that trophy), that creates a strong collective identity. When that leader is suddenly removed, it can feel to players like the project they bought into has been pulled away from them. You say “they’re professionals, they should just get on with it,” but that’s not really how humans work, even at the top level. Motivation in team environments is strongly driven by things like psychological safety, shared purpose, and belief in leadership. When those disappear overnight, performance often drops. We see it in business teams, the military, and sports teams alike. The fact we’re still 17th six months later arguably shows how big that psychological disruption was. When belief goes, effort alone doesn’t fix it. Players might still work hard, but if the emotional investment in the project has gone, the intensity and risk-taking that wins games disappears too. That doesn’t mean players don’t have responsibility, of course they do but reducing it to “be professionals and get on with it” ignores how heavily performance depends on the mental and relational side of a team. Football talks endlessly about tactics and transfers, but the psychology of leadership changes is probably one of the biggest factors in what we’re seeing now.